Cape Cod

by Henry David Thoreau

Overview

Cape Cod chronicles Henry David Thoreau's journey of discovery along this evocative stretch of Massachusetts coastline, during which time he came to understand the complex relationship between the sea and the shore. He spent his nights in lighthouses, in fishing huts, and on isolated farms. He passed his days wandering the beaches, where he observed the wide variety of life, and death, offered up by the ocean. Through these observations, Thoreau discovered that the only way to truly know the sea - its depth, its wildness, and the natural life it contained - was to study it from the shore. Like his most famous work, Walden, Cape Cod is full of Thoreau's unique perceptions and precise descriptions. But it is also full of his own joy and wonder at having stumbled across a new frontier so close to home, where a man may stand and "put all America behind him."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781732762657
Publisher:	Parnassus Book Service
Publication date:	04/30/2021
Series:	Cape Cod Classics , #1
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.42(d)

About the Author

Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1817. He graduated from Harvard in 1837, the same year he began his lifelong Journal. Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau became a key member of the Transcendentalist movement that included Margaret Fuller and Bronson Alcott. The Transcendentalists' faith in nature was tested by Thoreau between 1845 and 1847 when he lived for twenty-six months in a homemade hut at Walden Pond. While living at Walden, Thoreau worked on the two books published during his lifetime: Walden (1854) and A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849). Several of his other works, including The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, and Excursions, were published posthumously. Thoreau died in Concord, at the age of forty-four, in 1862.

Paul Theroux, an internationally acclaimed travel writer, is also the author of over two dozen novels and works of non-fiction. He divides his time between Cape Cod and the Hawaiian Islands.

Date of Birth:

July 12, 1817

Date of Death:

May 6, 1862

Place of Birth:

Concord, Massachusetts

Place of Death:

Concord, Massachusetts

Education:

Concord Academy, 1828-33); Harvard University, 1837

Table of Contents

I. The Shipwreck

II. Stage-coach Views

III. The Plains Of Nauset

IV. The Beach

V. The Wellfleet Oysterman

VI. The Beach Again

VII. Across the Cape

VIII. The Highland Light

IX. The Sea and the Desert

X. Provincetown

Editorial Reviews

"Cape Cod is Thoreau's sunniest, happiest book. It bubbles over with jokes, puns, tall tales, and genial good humor. . . . Unquestionably the best book that has ever been written about Cape Cod, and it is the model to which all new books about the Cape are still compared."—-Walter Harding, The Days of Henry Thoreau

From the Publisher

Illustrates the qualities that define [Thoreau’s] greatest works: his clarity and ease of style, and his concreteness as a naturalist and observer of nature and society. Patrick Cullen’s unforced and straightforward delivery…conveys both Thoreau’s strengths as a reporter and the secret of handling this author successfully in the audio format.”

AudioFile

Cape Cod is Thoreau’s sunniest, happiest book. It bubbles over with jokes, puns, tall tales, and genial good humor…Unquestionably the best book that has ever been written about Cape Cod, and it is the model to which all new books about the Cape are still compared.”

The Days of Henry Thoreau Walter Harding

Cape Cod is Thoreau's sunniest, happiest book. It bubbles over with jokes, puns, tall tales, and genial good humor. . . . Unquestionably the best book that has ever been written about Cape Cod, and it is the model to which all new books about the Cape are still compared.

The Days of Henry Thoreau - Walter Harding

Cape Cod is Thoreau's sunniest, happiest book. It bubbles over with jokes, puns, tall tales, and genial good humor. . . . Unquestionably the best book that has ever been written about Cape Cod, and it is the model to which all new books about the Cape are still compared.
— Walter Harding

The Days of Henry Thoreau